[INDOLOGY] Soma and Amanita muscaria

[Walter Slaje]

An approximately 4000+ years old wall painting recently retrieved from a
western Himalayan cave will solve the disputed matter unless and until the
ephedra party succeeds in producing comparably firm counterevidence:


[image: grafik.png]




The Soma vendors left a caption below the painting:

“*Aṃśu* of only the finest quality being carried down the slopes by a
satisfied Āryan customer with his personal cart. Please note his thrill of
anticipation and replenish your stocks at your trusted dealers from Mount
Mūjavant !”


pīyatām, svastaye!

WS


Am Mi., 10. Okt. 2018 um 11:44 Uhr schrieb rainer stuhrmann via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info>:

> Dear all,
>
> To answer to Prof. Houben long statement, skipping future experiments
>
> that can prove everything and nothing:
>
> Main problem with Ephedra is: it does not fit at all
>
> 1. the Rigvedic ritual, for a detailed discussion of that see my
> article, p.22ff, p.31 (btw. nothing is said in the RV
>
> about “sprinkling” the Soma),
>
> 2. Somas colours which refer to the pressed juice, see p. 31-38
>
> 3.  the effects described by the poets, see p.44-71
>
> whereas Amanita muscaria does in all respects.
>
> To
>
> “The main error in the argument ... by Dr. Stuhrmann and others
>
> would seem to be that *all* poetic-hallucinogenic descriptions of the
> Soma plant are taken as resulting *directly and exclusively* from the
> use of a drug or psychoactive substance, whereas (1) the ritual in which
> the Soma-beverage is produced contains other, significant
>   "transformative-hallucinogenic" practices that appear as crucial
> already in the pre-Srauta, Rgvedic ritual; (2) from Saint Franciscus and
> Teresia of Avila to William Wordsworth and Apollinaire, poets write
> "psychedelic" or "visionary" poetry without being known to have used
> strong psychotropic substances.“
>
> the answer is:
>
> (1) has not be demonstrated for the RV
>
> (2) is not disputed at all (see my article p.20), but the occurence of
> which elsewehere is of course no proof for the RV.
>
> But if Houben argues:
>
> “ In addition, a lack of nutritients through fasting and thirsting may
> induce hallucinations as well. The same applies to the deprivation
> sleep. Most importantly, whether a substance or the absence of
> substances does indeed produce a hallucination will usually depend to a
> large
> extent on the physiological and psychological condition of the subject,
> whereas the nature of the hallucination or vision will depend on his
> psychology and cultural background.“(Houben, 2003: 3,1)
>
> the problem here is:
>
> the Rigveda does not tell us about “fasting and thirsting, deprivation
> of sleep” (Houben) etc, but the poets say very often loud and clear: “We
> have just drunk Soma” (see discussion of this, p. 19ff).
>
> And that is a dried plant arriving on the ritual place, soaked in water,
> swelled by that process(as e.g. mushrooms do), pressed out (not beaten),
> giving a red to yellowish juice (as e.g. the fly-agaric does),
> mixed with milk and drunken for /máda/ “inebriation”, the described
> effects of which fit the optical illusionsproduced by hallicunogenic
> drugs (as e.g. the fly agaric and btw. also his dreaded side-effects,
> see pp. 49-52). For a detailed discussion of this, including
> counterarguments by Brough, Houben, Falk and others etc see my article
> 2006, pp 10-21 and pp 44-70 .
>
> Best regards
>
> Rainer Stuhrmann
>
>
>
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